My baby is only 10 months old and way below the &quot;normal&quot; weight. Please Help!

I have a 10 month old daughter and my husband and I have been a little worried over her weight for some time, but because she is such an active baby where she is eating a lot, playing, laughing, crawling, sitting up, talking, clapping...all showing normal signs of a healthy baby, we didn't really have a cause for an emergency.
Just recently we had taken her to her pediatrician and she put up a red flag. She insinuated that maybe we were somehow abusing our baby (but she didn't say it out loud) and then had us take my baby to a clinic to have blood withdrawn, which we did and I was very scared because they had to withdraw a lot of blood out of this little tiny baby. The next step was for my baby to take an x-ray from head to toe. When the doctor first told me this, my first thought was that it made perfect sense because I wanted to make sure that my baby was fine, but when we went to the x-ray lab, even they were hesitant because they said that they would have to take a series of x-ray photos of different parts of her body and that would be exposing her to a lot of radiation.

My husband and I are wanting to get a second opinion on having her go through the x-rays...yes, we really do want to get to the bottom of this and find out what is going on in our little girl, but at the same time we don't want to make things worse for her if the x-ray was unnecessary. I'm sure the pediatrician knows what she is doing, but my husband and I also know that not everything the doctor says is the "right" thing. Patients have been known to be mis-diagnosed before. We just don't want to take that chance with our baby.

Does anyone have any helpful advice or suggestions? It would really be great to get some feedback on this. In the meantime, my husband and I will continue to monitor our child's weight and research on our own...hopefully get a second opinion from another doctor if anything.

From the measurements you wrote, her weight and height is very much below the 5th percentile for her age. If you have been going to this doctor, why have they not said anything about her weight and height to you before? A child’s weight and height are monitored from birth. As long as a child is steadily growing, no matter how slow, they are fine. Some children are genetically small so they may fall below the growth charts. If the child is not growing then, they normally suspect a medical condition or in some cases abuse stopping growth so numerous tests need to be done. The MD should be explaining this to you.

Maybe u r right and they are checking for abuse, but maybe not. They can see things like cyst, tumors, bone age, brittle bones, and not sure what else. My baby has been failure to thrive baby since she was 1 month old. I wish her docs would do more preventative test and be more pro-active. If you are feeling uncomfortable, I would make another appointment immediately with a new doc and seek a second opinion. Ask why is there concern and what you need to do as a parent to help your child. Ask the doc for a simple CBC and Chem 20 to check for the basics first. Ask why not a less risky test if you are uncomfortable.

Maybe your little one is not getting enough calories for her activity level. Otherwise there might be a metabolic or other disorder involved.
What newborn screens were done. They can do more metabolic test.

Have you ever obtained all of her records and read through them. You would truly be amazed at what doctors will write in records and not tell you. Such as my daughters newborn records said she was resucitated numerous times. HELLO! Why were we not told.

Has your daughter been checked for GERD or other allergies? Insist that they check your daughters thyroid. It is just to easy for doctors to blame us when they don't know.

My daughter is 15 months, 28 and 1/2 inches, 16 pounds, and a very active child. She is very happy when she is not hurting. I have not met a doctor yet that did not dismiss our pleas to help figure out why she hurts so much.

We still don't know what is wrong with her and she has been through multiple test.

Don't be afraid to speak up and demand they investigate further. You are your daughter's advocate and she cannot speak for herself.

Thank you so much! My husband and I have already agreed to go in tomorrow to see my daughter's current doctor so we can better understand the situation. My husband wasn't there initially so he has a lot of questions.

Your advice really gave me a lot to think about before tomorrow though...thanks again!

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